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All hail HAIL, CAESAR!

05 Friday Feb 2016

Posted by cinepam in Reviews

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Alden Ehrenreich, Barton Fink, Channing Tatum, Coen Bros., Frances McDormand, George Clooney, Hail Caesar!, Josh Brolin, Ralph Fiennes, Roger Deakins, Scarlet Johansson

Hail, Caesar!

The last time Joel and Ethan Coen visited vintage Hollywood, it was the 1940s and John Turturro was the Clifford Odets-like Barton Fink (1991), who finds his talent, sanity, and very life threatened by a diabolical, soulless town and industry. The siblings’ strike a more buoyant tone with their return to Tinseltown’s Golden Age, Hail, Caesar!, set in the 1950s during the fading days of the studio era. Cheeky, exuberant, and salacious, this is a behind-the-scenes comic fable that allows the Coen Bros. to experiment with numerous styles while spinning several stories seemingly inspired by Kenneth Anger’s Hollywood Babylon or maybe a tattered, yellowing cache of Confidential magazines.

Josh Brolin stars as Eddie Mannix, guilt-ridden Catholic, head of production at Capitol Pictures, and designated company fixer when scandal rears its head. Putting out fires is what he does best and with the studio about to be consumed by flames, he is in for a busy 24 hours: Production on the titular Bible story (subtitled “A Tale of the Christ” a la Ben-Hur) screeches to a halt when leading man Baird Whitlock (George Clooney) disappears from set. Musical stars DeeAnna Moran (Scarlett Johansson) and Burt Gurney (Channing Tatum) have potentially career-killing skeletons rattling around in their closets. Effete director Laurence Lorenz (Ralph Fiennes) is none too happy that congenial, but dimwitted singing cowboy star Hobie Doyle (Alden Ehrenreich) has been thrust upon his sophisticated, English drawing-room romance despite the boy’s disastrous accent and inability to use his words. If that weren’t enough, a cadre of Communist writers (played by a group of ace character actors including Fisher Stevens, Patrick Fischler, David Krumholtz, and Fred Melamed) are putting the squeeze on the studio and twin gossip columnists Thora and Thessaly Thacker (Tilda Swinton) are circling like sharks sensing chum in the water.

The Coens and their cast are clearly having a blast as the brothers pay homage to a Hollywood that hasn’t existed in well over half a century, capturing the feel of a big studio’s back lot when the place was still a company town. The riffs on various genres—Biblical epic, oater, and Esther Williams-style swim spectacular, among them—are spectacular. The highlight is Tatum’s big dance number, taking the lead as one of a gang of sailors in a production number that wouldn’t be out of place in a Gene Kelly musical—well, except for the homoerotic spin on it. The Coens clearly know their classics and what makes them tick.

The acting is superb, particularly from Brolin as long-suffering master juggler Mannix; Johansson as brassy screen siren DeeAnna; Ehrenreich as sweet, thick, and sincere Hobie; and in a delicious cameo, Frances McDormand as the studio’s no-nonsense editor CC Calhoun. Production design and costuming are superb, reflecting the glamor of that bygone era. The Coens’ longtime collaborator, cinematographer Roger Deakins, is back in the fold after a nearly 10-year absence and his compositions and gorgeous lensing add yet another layer of gloss to the film.

Hail, Caesar! Is a glorious piece of work. The Coens are firing on all cylinders in their recreation of Hollywood as it never quite was. How this will play to a wide, general audience is a question—is it a little too inside baseball for its own good? But for anyone who loves classic Hollywood and those willing to follow the siblings down whatever twisted path they forge, the movie is pure delight, comic gold to brighten up a dreary winter.—Pam Grady

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Review: A not so bright TOMORROWLAND

22 Friday May 2015

Posted by cinepam in Reviews

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Brad Bird, Britt Robertson, Disneyland, George Clooney, Hugh Laurie, Kathryn Hahn, Keegan-Michael Key, Raffey Cassidy, Tomorrowland

Tomorrowland

“Tomorrowland and Tomorrowland and Tomorrowland…It is a tale told by an imagineer, full of sound and fury, signifying nothing.” Sorry, William Shakespeare, couldn’t resist the appropriation. Brad Bird is an enormously talented filmmaker as he proved with The Iron Giant, The Incredibles, Ratatouille, and even Mission Impossible: Ghost Protocol. But his gifts fail him with his latest, a libertarian fantasy of a better world that only the best and the brightest can access and where they will be free to perfect the future. The problem isn’t that Tomorrowland is a libertarian fantasy—although that is problematic—it is that there is precious little wonder to be had in a silly saga inspired by the Disneyland attraction in which a teenage girl’s optimism is the one thing that might prevent apocalypse.

Britt Robertson (Under the Dome, Cake) has the thankless task of playing the gee-whiz kid herself, Casey, the daughter of a NASA engineer, who spends most of the movie in constant amazement, her eyes so wide it’s a miracle that her eyeballs don’t pop out. Counterbalancing Casey’s sunny disposition is sour Frank Walker (a gruff George Clooney), one-time boy genius turned embittered recluse. Athena (Raffey Cassidy), an old friend of Frank’s, puts them together. Casey’s had a glimpse of Tomorrowland and is eager to visit. Frank spent part of his childhood there, but his sense of wonder is long gone. Athena knows the sands of time are running out for the world and senses that Casey is the key to reversing the situation—but only if she and Frank can make it to Tomorrowland.

Naturally, there are forces determined to keep Casey and Frank from making their way to this eden. Nix (Hugh Laurie), who runs things in this sleek, futuristic world, doesn’t even want the ne plus ultra of humanity darkening Tomorrowland’s doors, since even the elite aren’t immune to humanity’s self-destructive pathologies. Not that he’s one talk, based on how he defends his realm. For a Disney movie, there are a lot of explosions.

Most dispiriting of all is Tomorrowland itself. While Casey insists that the place is “amazing,” bits of it resemble a well-appointed airport, parts of it evoke an oil refinery, and even the sections of it that are genuinely spectacular are still a little antiseptic. It’s a museum world, not a living one. The film’s recreation of the 1964 World’s Fair and vision of the Eiffel Tower with a couple of special additions are much more awe-inspiring than this utopian world. And it’s not nearly as amusing as the junk shop Casey visits presided over by Ursula (Kathryn Hugo) and Hugo (Keegan-Michael Key)—the two best reasons to see the film, hilarious in their cameo performances—two more characters obsessed with Tomorrowland. After all the trouble, Casey and Frank take to get to the place, it is a letdown. Kind of like the movie itself.—Pam Grady

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